Susan Wright on the Right
On Thursday evening, the news of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ explosive claims of extortion and blackmail by Trump pal, David Pecker’s organization, American Media Inc. (parent company of tabloid magazine, The National Enquirer) was the top trending topic across social media.
Bezos made the bold decision to post the whole story for the world to see.
Apparently, his hiring of an investigator to track down how AMI came in possession of private text messages and information regarding an affair he was having with a married, former television anchorwoman, Lauren Sanchez.
Bezos, and his wife, MacKenzie, got ahead of the story by announcing their divorce the day before The National Enquirer went front page with the affair.
In his Thursday post, Bezos said that he had been informed that when Pecker found out that he had employed someone to begin an investigation, he went “apoplectic.”
It was so much so that AMI’s chief content officer, Dylan Howard, sent an email to Martin Decker, litigation counsel for Bezo’s investigator, Gavin de Becker, detailing nine explicit images they had obtained, and were prepared to release, should Bezos not put a stop to the investigation.
Bezos acknowledged that the images would certainly be embarrassing, should they be splattered across the pages of a tabloid rag, but he was willing to risk it.
I’ve written a post about developments with the National Enquirer and its parent company, AMI. You can find it here: https://t.co/G1ykJAPPwy
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) February 7, 2019
“Of course I don’t want personal photos published, but I also won’t participate in their well-known practice of blackmail, political favors, political attacks and corruption,” Mr. Bezos wrote of A.M.I., explaining why he had decided to speak out. “I prefer to stand up, roll this log over and see what crawls out.”
And crawl, they shall.
De Becker is examining if there’s any connection between the release of the information about the affair and to Ms. Sanchez’s brother, who is apparently a Trump supporter.
It is no secret that for myriad reasons, Donald Trump despises Jeff Bezos.
While most of it can be chalked up to his impotent rage over a man who has proven to be the far better businessman, and an actual billionaire.
Envy hangs heavy over the smallness of Trump’s true, financial reach.
Bezos also owns The Washington Post, however, and their coverage of Trump’s presidency has been less than favorable.
As the intrigue behind this unfolding drama grows, one WaPo reporter believes he may have some answers, in regards to who is behind the story.
In an appearance on MSNBC on Thursday, Post reporter Manuel Roig-Franzia said that Bezos’s security consultant, Gavin de Becker, believes that the National Enquirer obtained text messages from Bezos through inappropriate means.
Obviously.
“They have begun to believe, the Bezos camp, that this publication by the National Enquirer might have been politically motivated,” Roig-Franzia said Thursday.
“Gavin de Becker told us that he does not believe that Jeff Bezos’s phone was hacked, he thinks it’s possible that a government entity might have gotten hold of his text messages,” he added.
In other words, someone with access to tap into a private citizen’s cell phone and grab those images and texts – but who?
It’s a valid question, and if Roig-Franzia and de Becker are correct, it is a breathtaking misuse of government resources, as well as the civil liberties of an American citizen.
Washington Posts @RoigFranzia says Bezos' team thinks it's possible that the text leaks were politically motivated and that a "government entity" accessed the Bezos texts and hoo boy that's certainly something pic.twitter.com/MQuzNFbCed
— Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) February 8, 2019
We have not heard the last of this.
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